News from Councilmember Nazarian May 15, 2026:
Today, Mayor Bass and I stopped by Rhodes Avenue Park to see the neighborhood’s new solar-powered street lights. In years past, many of our street lights were extinguished when thieves robbed them of their copper wire. These solar-powered lights have no wires to steal, and because they are not connected to the electrical grid, they’re not vulnerable to windstorms and power outages.
Rhodes Avenue Park is a special place to me. When I was in the Assembly I secured funding to create this park out of nothing but an empty field. If you want to create spaces that people can really use, you need to make sure that they feel safe, and that takes secure reliable lighting. This is now a place where families, children and seniors can walk in the evening and know the streetlights are staying stay on, because these lights won’t be ripped off for copper wire or lose power during a blackout or a windstorm.
The Mayor’s proposed budget calls for replacing 60,000 City street lights with these updated solar units, fighting copper wire theft while accelerating our transition to 100 percent clean energy.